I am taking a Creative Writing class, and am free-writing every day with themes posed by our instructor.  So, I am going to post my writings here…lucky you! Today’s prompt:  Try setting a scene somewhere that has been stripped of its usual characteristics: a forest with no trees, a supermarket with nothing on the shelves, a city with no humans.

Hmmm, this is an interesting one.

I recall a scene like this in March and April, grocery stores stripped of so many things on their shelves. Toilet paper, Kleenex, paper towels, anything having to do with cleaning. Those are the obvious ones. But also what was interesting was the lack of chickens and eggs — not sure which ones went first — and also rice and pasta. Canned vegetables, although fresh veggies seemed to be there, but obviously people were hoarding. Packing their pantries, as it were.

It took awhile for some of these things to come back, and even now, paper towels shelves are bare.

In terms of the scenes listed here, I guess you can technically have a supermarket with bare shelves, even though it’s not much of a supermarket, but you can’t have a forest without trees. The definition of forest is a bunch of trees. A city with no humans? Sure. In fact, our city is much nicer in some ways with fewer humans. Well, there are more out there now, but it was sure quiet for a while out there.

Other ideas?  I think a bar with no alcohol would be a drag. Not much point there! What else? An ice cream shop with no ice cream? Well even if it has some ice cream, but no mint chocolate chip. A travesty! A butcher with no bacon. What’s the point? We have a college with no students on campus, well very few. But they are out there online! So, some appearances are deceiving and you have to look under the rug or in the dark corners or in the closets or online to find the things you are expecting.

It’s a strange world now where all the things listed here, except the treeless forest which I addressed already, have existed for most people at some point this year. An interesting question and I don’t think I’ve set a scene at all, but only reflected on what has happened in the past covid months.  End Scene.